Thumbnail photo by Hernan Jimenez
When Mateo Kingman spoke with The FADER last year, the Ecuadorian musician laid out his artistic vision: "to develop and experiment with our past music and what we are today." The music video for “Sendero Del Monte” visualizes this journey of self-discovery. Trapped in a cave's darkness, Kingman is gifted a colorful mask and, upon wearing it, is treated to glorious, angelic visions. The powerful, psychedelic images, directed by Camilo Coba Riofrio, underscore the song's hybridity: chillwave-y production and powerful kicks weave perfectly with organic percussion and Kingman's melodies, which seem to come from somewhere deep within him.
“'Sendero del Monte' is a song I wrote after a journey along paths deep into the jungle, a place full of spirits," Kingman told The FADER over email. "It’s a search for the cure to all the ills of mankind, a walk in the woods, in which I become part of all the things living there: plants, animals, rivers, the wind, waterfalls. At the end, I meet a woman bird who transports me to an invisible world where I finally find the cure. And the cure is love."
Mateo Kingman's new album Respira is out on August 12 on AYA Records.